Workflow Testing

All right, your templates are done, your Dubsado is all set up.

You're excited to log in, to feel this relief that you've been building up to for all of this time.

And you're like Kate, I still have no idea what the hell I am doing.

And yes, that's correct.

You are not wrong for feeling that way.

The way that you are going to get past this feeling is by using your workflows.

But obviously that's scary to do on an actual client.

So instead you're going to test them on yourself so that you can fully experience what the client will experience while also seeing what that looks like on the back end.

So how do we test?

Great question.

I'm glad you asked.

Let's dive in.

Head into your product where you will see your workflows page and scroll down to the Workflow Testing guide section.

Now here you have a list of all of your workflows in the order that you will be testing them and each of them has a how to test quick explanation in addition to a tutorial.

If you click the tutorial it will open up a new tab with step by step written screen instructions.

But you've also got written instructions here and when you click open you're going to see more detail here on the side if you're using the PDF then you will see a section here for how to test.

So refer to that.

The first thing that you will do is go to Templates forms and you will open up the form indicated on your workflow builder that kicks off the particular workflow that you are going to be testing.

In this case I'm going to show you how this works.

With a lead caption you will locate the form that you need to test with, click it to open it and then over on the left hand side the fourth item down you'll see is sharing and the icon has this little arrow.

Click it and then you will copy this link and open it in a new tab.

When you are testing a lead capture, you do not have to open the link in an incognito window, but that will be relevant for another form type.

You will then fill in all of the required fields as if you were the client.

I recommend using your personal email or another email that you set up specifically specifically for testing rather than using your business email.

This is because once you hit send your business email is going to get a notification that you have a new client.

So you want your client emails going to one account and your business emails going to your business account.

The other form Type that might start a workflow is a public proposal.

Within your public proposal, you will navigate to the, same fourth item with the arrow that you did for a lead capture.

You will copy the link and open it in an incognito tab.

So you cannot just open it in your browser window that you have here.

You have to open it in an incognito window because otherwise Dubsado will know that it's you logged in as the business owner.

So go ahead and open that link, fill it out as if you are the client in an incognito window, and then hit Submit so that you're working.

Flow testing can begin.

When you are testing with a public proposal, there is one other little thing that you need to know, and that is that you have to apply a payment in order for everything to move forward.

So whenever the client completes the proposal, they are automatically going to be entered into Sato.

But the workflow won't necessarily do what it's supposed to do until a payment has been made.

So here's how we get around that from this perspective, the client would just pay it, but you're not going to pay yourself.

So you're going to go into the back end of Dubsado.

You're going to click Projects.

You're going to locate the project that you just did or that you just created as part of your test.

You'll go to the Invoices tab and then you need to apply a payment for whatever amount is due.

So if that's the full amount, do that.

If there is a retainer due, then enter just the retainer amount and go from there.

I didn't look at this invoice to see how much is possible, but I'm going to apply my $500 payment and then if that's what my installment was, okay, I should have done 1033, but if that' the installment is then the rest of the workflow will continue.

Once you've made that payment, You're going to navigate to Templates Scheduler, and then you'll search for the scheduler that kicks off this workflow.

You will locate it in the left hand menu and you'll look for this link icon, click it to open up its settings.

Then you will copy the direct link and open it in a new tab.

Now you will schedule the appointment as if you are the client.

When you are prompted to fill out the form attached to it, follow the same rules as if you were testing a workflow that starts with forms.

That is, you will test it by Putting in your personal email or a testing email as the client email.

That way you're able to see what's happening both in your business account and on the client.

And as you continue your testing process.

When your workflow begins with a zap or any other integration, you have to kick it off by doing whatever triggers your zap to begin.

So if that's when completing an outside form or scheduling an appointment with an outside service or something else custom to your business, you have to go do that thing.

Make sure that your zap is published and turned on before you start.

There are two other ways that a workflow can start, but you don't need to worry about how to kick those off in this moment.

But I do want to just tell you about them so that you're not confused or questioning.

So some of the way one of those two ways is from a previous workflow and basically as long as you kick off your other workflows correctly, you don't need to worry about this one.

One Dubsado is going to handle it for you.

You can push force now in the workflow step to force these steps to start as needed if it's based on timing.

But you don't need to do anything really to manually trigger this in the moment.

The other way that you might see is that a workflow is supposed to be manually triggered.

Now you're very rarely if ever going to be expected to just know to manually trigger a workflow.

If I've set this up for you, it means that most you're going to be prompted to start these workflows via to do's in other workflows.

So you're going to receive a task that says hey, manually start this workflow.

And within that to do there should be a hyperlink, with a tutorial on my website showing you how to manually start the workflow so that you always have access to that information in the moment.

So if you're not seeing that hyperlink, it means that it didn't get copied over from the workflow builder correctly.

So you can always head back to that workflows tab and locate the to do to find and insert that tutorial link as appropriate.

But I promise, once you've gotten the hang of this, it's really, really easy to stop and start workflows.

As you're testing, there are a few things that I want you to know, so that you feel really confident and clear and can move through this process and efficiently.

So first of all is that all of your Testing is going to be happening on a project which looks like this.

And any changes that you make on this project while testing is only going to affect this project.

So whatever form or package or workflow or scheduler that you apply to this project and then make changes on that is not going to affect your master templates found here.

That is only affecting this copy of each of those pieces of content.

So that also means to keep in mind that you should never have anything in your templates area with a client's name on it.

everything should be within their project.

So as you're testing, you're going to be spending some time in the workflows tab.

So let's go and check that out.

You need to know what all of these actions mean on this page.

So Edit allows you to edit the action.

This is the option that you're going to use when the direction that you're given is to customize an email prior to sending, or when you want to adjust the time that it's being sent.

You can make whatever changes in here that you need.

You can, make this, say something totally crazy.

And when you click Apply, that is only applying to this copy of your workflow.

And now those changes will be live.

The Remove step allows you to remove a step from the workflow.

It will not fire, It'll go away.

And again, it's only removing it from the workflow on this step project, not from your overall template.

Mark completed.

This is going to be especially important later on when you're catching up your current clients, although it is still helpful to know.

Now, this item marks the action complete, but it doesn't actually perform the action.

So this is what you're going to use if you manually completed a step, or if you did it outside of Dubstack, or if you completed a to do like this one before Dubsado actually created the to do or triggered the to do.

So you'll see that when I click Mark completed, we get this little checkbox over here and all of the date prompts go away.

And then finally, Force.

Now that is going to be your best friend during this testing process.

Force now performs the action immediately, regardless of where it is in the workflow.

because you don't actually want to be waiting four days for this form reminder to go.

When you're doing the testing process, you're going to click Force now on steps like this so that you can skip some of those, items, some of those delay periods, and so that you can test in an afternoon rather than over the course of days and weeks.

the Other thing that you need to know is that some of your workflow actions are likely going to be based on payment.

You may see actions in here that are based on after invoice paid in full or after an installment is paid.

And so that means that you need to know how to apply fake payments.

So I'm going to take you through that now.

To do that, you'll simply go to the invoices tab at the appropriate time after the invoice has been created.

And and you are going to click Apply Payment and then you're going to put in a fake payment.

Click Apply now.

You do want that fake payment to be the correct amount.

So if this is based on, you know, 50% being paid or whatever it is, if you refer to your payment plan, it'll show you how much is due.

You need to make sure that you're putting in that amount that is due in order to trigger your work fit flow correctly.

So that is the big things that you need to know.

The key actions that you need to know how to take in Dubsado in order to test.

And I promise that the more you practice this, the more clear you will feel.

As you go through your testing process, make sure that you're considering these questions.

Are my smart fields working appropriately in my candy mails and in my forms?

Are my forms able to be filled out correctly?

Can I hit submit on all of them?

Am I receiving any error messages in my forms, workflows or in any other area of my account?

Do I need more to do's to help manage my workflows or do I need to remove some that feel like they're cluttering at my inbox and slowing down my process with things that are not critical to the workflow operating correctly?

And finally, do I feel confident running this workflow on a real client?

If your answer to any of these questions is no, then it's time to head back.

Make sure that everything is working correctly, and then continue practicing and testing until you feel absolutely confident.